The billionaire Barry Diller is exploring a bid to take management of Paramount, the father or mother firm of CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon, in accordance with 4 individuals with data of the matter.
Mr. Diller’s digital-media conglomerate, IAC, has signed nondisclosure agreements with Nationwide Amusements, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, the individuals mentioned. Nondisclosure agreements are a key step in deal making, permitting either side to trade confidential info.
Mr. Diller’s curiosity in Paramount is the newest twist in one of the crucial complicated — and dramatic — efforts to promote a media firm in a number of years. Paramount reached the brink of a deal in latest months with Skydance, a Hollywood studio, earlier than talks abruptly fell aside.
The nondisclosure agreements have been signed someday after the attainable deal between Paramount and Skydance fell by in June, two of the individuals mentioned.
It’s unclear how far alongside the talks between IAC and Nationwide Amusements are. Others have additionally expressed curiosity in buying Nationwide Amusements, together with the media and finance govt Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Steven Paul, the Hollywood govt finest recognized for his work on the “Child Geniuses” franchise.
A bid to take management of Paramount can be a coda of kinds for Mr. Diller, 82, who tried to amass Paramount Footage within the early ’90s. He was outbid by Sumner Redstone, the bellicose media mogul whose daughter, Shari, now controls the corporate.
Mr. Diller was named head of Paramount Footage in 1974 on the age of 32. He was credited with rejuvenating the studio, creating a cadre of gifted lieutenants, like the long run Disney chief govt Michael Eisner and the studio wunderkind Jeffrey Katzenberg, that turned generally known as the Killer Dillers.
After Mr. Redstone outbid him for the corporate, Mr. Diller set his sights on persevering with to construct his new media empire, placing a sequence of audacious offers to increase IAC.
“They gained,” Mr. Diller mentioned in an announcement after shedding out to Mr. Redstone. “We misplaced. Subsequent.”
Nationwide Amusements started exploring potential offers final yr. As a part of its talks with Skydance, Shari Redstone, the most important shareholder at Nationwide Amusements, would promote the corporate to Skydance, whereas Paramount would merge with Skydance by a separate transaction. That deal was scuttled after they might not agree on noneconomic phrases after important shareholder pushback.
By buying Nationwide Amusements, a purchaser would get management of Paramount — and its priceless studio library — with out having to strike a deal to amass the corporate outright. However it could additionally imply taking management of an asset with important liabilities, together with roughly $14 billion in debt and cable companies going through important headwinds.
